why doesn't a electron moving in a circular orbit create a magnetic field around itself?

Question

moving charges/current creates a magnetic field around the conductor.so why dosent an electron?if it does why arent all objects magnetic?

Answer 1

If the electron is orbiting a nucleus, it DOES create a magnetic field around itself. In addition, the electron has an intrinsic magnetic moment due to something we call spin (for lack of any better word to describe a point particle with angular momentum). These magnetic moments interact with each other and the angular momentum of the nucleus to create the fine and hyperfine structures of atomic spectra. So why isn't everything magnetic? The short answer is that everything IS magnetic. It's just that most of the magnetic moments tend to cancel each other out. Within an atom, you usually have a spin up electron for every spin down one. For orbiting electrons (not s=0 states with no angular momentum), the directions of orbit cancel out. So most atoms and molecules have little or no magnetic moment. In materials where the atoms DO have a magnetic moment, they atoms are usually all pointed in different directions, so the magnetic fields pretty much cancel out. So only certain materials under certain conditions will have microscopic magnetic moments that line up in such a way that you can observe a macroscopic magnetic field.

Answer 2

It does, and they are to some degree. What happens is that when the electrons get together in an atom, they pair up in such a way as to minimize the magnetic energy - that's (partially) why the atom's orbitals fill up the way they do. If you have an atom with an odd atomic number, you get unpaired electrons in the outermost shell. But these atoms tend either pair up in molecules (H2, N2, etc.) so that these electrons pair up, or form crystals and shed the outermost electrons to what's called the "conduction band" - the electrons stay in the material but don't stay in orbit around the atoms, making them conductive. All this pairing up makes the magnetic moments cancel out (like placing two magnets together, north-to-south ploes) leaving a non-magnetic material.

The electrons themselves also spin on their axis, making them magnetic even when they're not in orbit - again, they pair up in such a way to minimize the magnetic energy.

The actual physics behind it can get pretty complicated, but that's it in a nutshell.

Answer 3

According to quantum theory, electrons also spin as they orbit the nucleus. The spin direction is denoted by either a "+" or "-". The spin direction changes spontaneously at random intervals according to probablility functions, which physicists have gone to great lengths to attempt to calculate, but of course, then they attempt to verify their calculations, their instruments affect the electrons so that they can never be sure what its spin was before they tried to measure it.

In nature, the electons spinning in the "+" state cancel out the effect of the electrons in the "-" state, so there no net sustained magnetic field is produced.

When electric currents are applied, the external force (potential energy) orients the spin of electrons in the same direction, so a magnetic field is induced.

Source: An educated guess

Answer 4

You'll have to find an electron that moves in a circular orbit, first. Unlike planets that revolve around the Sun in a set elliptical pattern, electrons do not revolve around the nucleus of an atom in a set fashion, an electron's "orbit" varies constantly and is thought to be elliptical as well.

Answer 5

Thats an interesting question...I am not well versued...but in a "nano" sense I think a electron would have a magnetic field.

Answer 6

Because it's the energy between the atoms, not the structure itself. Electromagnetic energy is one force of many. Forces are determined by what is in between the molecules.

Just because we can identify a structure, it doesn't mean that it's where all the energy is coming from. It means that the structure is created because of the energies that are influenced through other vibrational energies.

The structure of the electron and proton, when studied more deeply, is really vibrational energy that is constantly fluctuating in and out of existence.

Answer 7

Because the electron is not orbiting itself.

Answer 8

there's no gravitation around it because then it wouldn't be an electron. Think: If it would orbit around itself it could attract other particles. So: because it isn't orbiting around itself

Answer 9

Last I read it does, but it is believed it rotates in the opposite direction to its orbit, thus effectively cancelling the field... I think!

Answer 10

the atom's nucleus has an opposite charge which neutralizes the electron's own charge.